Foley searches for redemption in a unlikely place: the cities

Updated 10:04 pm, Saturday, August 9, 2014

Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Foley talks with Patti Grabiec, of Trumbull, while on the campaign trail in Stratford, Conn. Thursday, July 31, 2014 at Festival Stratford on the grounds of the American Shakespeare Theater. less

Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Foley talks with Patti Grabiec, of Trumbull, while on the campaign trail in Stratford, Conn. Thursday, July 31, 2014 at Festival Stratford on the grounds of the American ... more

Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Foley talks with Halina Slawsky, of Orange, while on the campaign trail in Stratford, Conn. Thursday, July 31, 2014 at Festival Stratford on the grounds of the American Shakespeare Theater. less

Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Foley talks with Halina Slawsky, of Orange, while on the campaign trail in Stratford, Conn. Thursday, July 31, 2014 at Festival Stratford on the grounds of the American ... more

Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Foley talks with Michael and Wendy Price, of Brooklyn, NY, while on the campaign trail in Stratford, Conn. Thursday, July 31, 2014 at Festival Stratford on the grounds of the American Shakespeare Theater. The couple's daughter lives in Fairfield. less

Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Foley talks with Michael and Wendy Price, of Brooklyn, NY, while on the campaign trail in Stratford, Conn. Thursday, July 31, 2014 at Festival Stratford on the grounds of ... more

Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Foley talks with Millicent Zolan, of Fairfield, while on the campaign trail in Stratford, Conn. Thursday, July 31, 2014 at Festival Stratford on the grounds of the American Shakespeare Theater. less

Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Foley talks with Millicent Zolan, of Fairfield, while on the campaign trail in Stratford, Conn. Thursday, July 31, 2014 at Festival Stratford on the grounds of the ... more

Tom Foley shakes hands with Moises Lopez, 9, who was waiting to have his hair cut at Evolution Barber Shop, in Bridgeport, Conn. Aug. 6, 2014. Foley was touring local businesses. Lopez is seen with his mother, Glenis Mendez, and his cousin Jacob Troujillo. less

Tom Foley shakes hands with Moises Lopez, 9, who was waiting to have his hair cut at Evolution Barber Shop, in Bridgeport, Conn. Aug. 6, 2014. Foley was touring local businesses. Lopez is seen with his mother, ... more

Lyle Hassan Jones drizzles honey into a cup of piping-hot green tea, inadvertently drawing attention to a large ring on his finger with a star and crescent symbol on it. A prayer cap covers his head.

Jones isn't eating.

From gang wars and failing public schools to double-digit unemployment and the fraying social safety net, he is instead schooling the strangest of bedfellows on the plight of Connecticut's most populous city, Bridgeport.

It's a place that Republican gubernatorial contender Tom Foley, sitting in the booth across from Jones and grazing on a chicken Caesar salad wrap and a pile of onion rings, knows all too well.

Or too little.

"I'll take you to the projects," Jones, a black community organizer, truancy officer and local imam, offered Foley during a visit Wednesday to Frankie's Diner in the city's East End.

"I'd like that," said Foley, having removed the knot cuff links and Vineyard Vines tie he had on earlier in the day.

Foley spent $11 million of his own money 2010 when he lost to Democrat Dannel P. Malloy in the closest Connecticut governor's race in more than half a century. He mustered a dismal 19 percent of the vote in the Park City. A ballot shortage and voting irregularities led Foley to dispute the results, a case he quickly dropped but has gnawed at him for four years.

A rematch is within reach for Foley, who earned his party's endorsement during the state GOP convention in May over a stable of Republicans that included primary foe John McKinney, the state Senate minority leader.

But there are constant reminders the private equity manager from Greenwich and former U.S. ambassador to Ireland must improve his ground game in the cities to win what national handicappers are pegging as a toss-up race.

"See, the Republicans don't have a popular brand," Jones said. "I think you have to get into the black churches. I think you need to get a platform, and people are going to ask you tough questions."

Stick-to-itiveness

The bumper sticker reads: "Don't blame me, I voted for Tom Foley."

It's affixed to the rear of Foley's navy blue Audi A4, which is idling in the diner's front parking lot with the son of a family friend seated behind the steering wheel.

The sticker is emblematic of Foley's sequel run for governor -- one marked by a soft focus television advertising campaign and subsidized mostly by taxpayers under the state's so-called clean elections program.

Foley, 62, is treating the midterm election as a referendum on Malloy's stewardship of Connecticut's economic recovery, one he said has been stalled by high taxes, runaway spending and a tangle of red tape that have antagonized job creators.

"This governor is very confrontational," Foley said during a wide-ranging interview Wednesday with the editorial board of Hearst Connecticut Media. "My impression is that he doesn't listen to people much. It's his way or the highway."

But the refrain among Foley's detractors is voters need to see more specifics from the GOP frontrunner, who has made broad promises to hold the line on spending, use his management expertise to trim the fat from state government and make blighted cities such as Bridgeport, Hartford and New Haven a priority.

"I don't see a real message here, other than, `I won't be Malloy,' " said Adrienne Fulco, director of the public policy and law program at Trinity College in Hartford. "The ads can't make you a new guy."

Birds of an uncommon feather

There's a dead seagull on the shoulder of Bridgeport's North Avenue.

Foley, who prepped at Andover like Harvard contemporary George W. Bush, is navigating potholes the size of craters in his tasseled shoes. It was Bush who tapped Foley to oversee private sector development during the postwar reconstruction of Iraq.

Former mayoral candidate John Gomes leads Foley on a tour of the city's North End that takes them to a Dominican barbershop with chartreuse walls and a bodega stocked with opium incense and sliced jalapenos.

They embark from the Red Rooster Deli, a popular eatery owned by the Cape Verdean immigrant Gomes where Foley takes questions from locals about his positions on charter schools, conflicts of interest in city government and gentrification .

"I find it offensive when outsiders decide what's best for us," said Maria Pereira, a former school board member.

Looking up from a plate of penne and meatballs, Pereira tells Foley she voted him four years ago even though she was a leader of the local Working Families Party at the time.

"I want to get a photo of you because I think you're the first Working Families Party chair who voted for me," quipped Foley, whose maternal grandfather was chairman of the Wisconsin Republican Party.

Foley tells the group the state needs to demand greater accountability from failing schools while giving more autonomy to those with successful outcomes.

From time to time, Foley's frustration with the prevailing left political winds of Bridgeport manifests itself in a dig at the city.

This time it comes when the subject of a 52-acre Steelpointe Harbor waterfront development, a project that has languished through six mayors, is raised.

"Every time some new person goes to jail, they change the name," Foley said, alluding to the imprisonment of former Bridgeport mayor Joseph P. Ganim.

But his quips have got him in trouble before.

In 2013, when Foley suggested House Minority Leader Larry Cafero of Norwalk had a conflict of interest because his law firm lobbies the state, it turned some Republicans against him.

"I can say that wasn't his finest hour," said Cafero, who is supporting McKinney in the primary. "The way that he went about it was clumsy and ruffled some feathers."

Tom Foley 2.0

Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton, Foley's running mate four years ago and a rival for the GOP's endorsement for governor this spring, said Foley has taken the lessons of 2010 to heart.

"He's going more on instinct, and, obviously so far, it's served him well," he said.

Boughton dropped out of the race in June because of a lack of funding and endorsed Foley.

"He's running a leaner campaign," Boughton said. "I think what he learned the last time is you don't have to have a lot of high-priced consultants to run an effective campaign."

Father of the bride

You won't find the name of one of Foley's most trusted consiglieres anywhere on his campaign payroll.

Foley is married to his daughter, Leslie Fahrenkopf Foley, who said, "Tom certainly takes his advice a lot of the time."

The couple has 3-year-old twins to go along with a son from Foley's first marriage, who attends Harvard University. A former White House associate counsel and News Corp. lawyer, Foley's wife introduced him in his first campaign commercial and is expected to play a major role in trying to close a gender gap that hurt the entire GOP ticket in 2010.

"This time around, I'm not trying not to read every article and every blog entry like I did the last time around because you go insane," she said.

Another confidant is Charles Glazer, who served as U.S. ambassador to El Salvador while Foley was in Ireland. Their friendship goes back to the 1996 presidential campaign of Bob Dole, with both becoming prolific GOP fundraisers.

"When President Bush asked him to go to Iraq, he was certainly in a position to say no, and he didn't," Glazer said.

Since the death of their mother in 1976, Foley said he has assumed responsibility for his sister, a role he says has influenced his thought that the state's response to the Newtown school shooting -- a stricter gun control law -- should have focused more on mental health care.

Before he bids his hosts goodbye, Foley wants his hosts to know that his interest in Bridgeport isn't fleeting.